Quayola^IT

Photo Credit: Gioele Vettraino

Italian artist Quayola reconfigures the visual languages of art history through the lens of contemporary computation. Working at the intersection of classical aesthetics and digital abstraction, his practice spans immersive installations, audiovisual performances, and algorithmically generated sculptures and drawings—each built on custom software that interrogates the mechanics of perception and representation. Rooted in traditions such as landscape painting, religious iconography, and classical sculpture, Quayola’s work deconstructs the visual codes of these forms to reveal a space where artificial logic contends with human expression. He treats the machine not just as a tool, but as a co-author—one that falters in its attempt to grasp nuance, emotion, and context, revealing a striking “poetics of error.”

Quayola’s work has been exhibited at major cultural institutions around the globe, including the V&A Museum in London, the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, the National Art Center in Tokyo, and Park Avenue Armory in New York. He is also a frequent collaborator with musicians and ensembles such as Jamie xx, Mira Calix, the London Contemporary Orchestra, and Tale Of Us. In 2013, he received the prestigious Golden Nica at Ars Electronica, affirming his place at the forefront of media art.

For MUTEK Montréal, Quayola presents Luce, a new performance created in celebration of the centenary of Archivio Luce, one of the world’s most important historical film archives. In this piece, archival footage is transformed into generative, algorithmic paintings. Removed from their historical narratives, these images evolve into pure forms, animated by the interpretive limitations of artificial intelligence. The resulting visual landscape is both a tribute and a critique—exploring how technology reimagines collective memory, while exposing its fundamental inability to replicate human cognition.

Quayola — Luce
Live A/V | North-American Premiere

In Luce, Quayola transforms Italy’s vast Archivio Luce into algorithmic paintings, where machines reinterpret history through glitches and form. Classical imagery dissolves into abstract code, producing a poetic tension between memory and mechanical error. A striking fusion of archival depth and digital abstraction.